"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 3 - The Maze in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

He paused a moment, frowning. "Did you say your name was Horowitz?"
She nodded.
"Different sort of world you must have here," he commented dryly, seeming to get
hold of himself. "You say you are a station manager? Then I must use your master
communications system immediately."
"This is just a minor stop," she told him. "No real traffic. This is less a real
station than just a security post for a weak spot. This place got misused a bit
much a few years back so we're keeping it closed down-or so we thought. We ain't
got no big installation here, not even a direct link up the line. We got to go
inside and up to the switch to do that. Ain't been no need for much more. My
security manager's up there now lettin' the Company know about the breach."
That worried him. "No direct communications. Blast! How many people do you have
here?"
"Normally there'd be several, but right now, inside the house, there's just you,
me, and my young son. On the grounds my live-in staff is here but that's just
Diane in the security shack and Cal, who's a kind of foreman and handyman."
He was appalled. "That's it? Two women, a kid, and a cowboy?"
She bristled. "No need for much more here, Mister. It's just a little station on
a weak point for convenience sake-the closest big one is like three thousand
miles from here on the other side of the country-with no cargo access. And don't
you sell us women short."
"Oh, I never sell women, and never sell short," he responded, a bit flip. He
tried to sit up, grimaced, and settled back down again. "I assume you at least
have a security system on this house?"
She nodded. "Good one, too. But we thought the one in the woods was even better
so don't count on this one."
He thought for a moment. "What about the Company here? Does it have full
operations?"
"You better believe it! They're into everything, as always."
"If I could just get out of this bed to ring them . . ."
"You don't have to," she told him, then left and returned with one of the
Company's cheap plug-in handset telephones. She plugged the cord into the
modular outlet, then handed it to him. He watched her do it, fascinated, as if
he'd never seen a phone with a modular plug before, then studied the one-piece
phone.
"How do you turn it on?" he asked her.
"It's on. Just push the buttons with the number I tell you and you should get
through to the eastern branch. There's always somebody on duty there."
He did as instructed, then listened and shook his head. "No sound. Nothing."
She took it from him, checked, and it was definitely dead. She wasn't
worried-yet. These cheap phones gave out for no reason all the time. When she
checked the solid, better phone in the master bedroom, though, and found it dead
as well, she began to worry. She hit the intercom and was relieved when Diane
answered.
"Our visitor's awake," she told the security officer, who otherwise was the one
who cared for the horses around here, "but the phone's dead. Can't call out."
"I've checked it-they've been calling in regularly until a half hour ago. I
checked the CB to see what the townies had and discovered that phone service is
generally out throughout the area. I reported it to the Company over the ham
radio- even there the static is awful-and they are concerned, but it doesn't